Uh-oh. Guess who's been getting lazy with their updates. That's right...ME! Thank goodness I finished "OLIVE" and now only have two unfinished fics to focus on. But man is "Subject 13" going to be pounding me silly with new plot bunnies!

Immediately, Peter was called over and he assessed the damage in the hallway of Olivia's apartment. "Geez! What happened?"

"Ella had a bad dream and then there was a fire," Olivia said quietly, trying to get Peter to read her mind on what was really going on here.

Rachel said, "Well, it was probably just a short circuit, right? Those things happen."

Ella went over to tug at her mom's shirt. "Mommy…I don't wanna go home. I'm scared."

"Scared? Ella you have nothing to be scared about. You're perfectly fine."

"Please, mommy?"

"Now Ella, that's enough." Rachel grabbed her daughter's arm gently. "You're coming home with me tomorrow and that's fina….AH!" She quickly let go at the sudden feeling of a burning sensation…a bold pink spot was now covering most of her palm.

"What happened?" asked Peter. Rachel hurried over to the sink to run her palm over cold water. "I don't know. I just touched Ella's arm and it started burning up."

Ella ran back to the guest room and her cries could be heard throughout the apartment. "Ella?" Olivia tried to follow her as much as her wheelchair could take her but she couldn't get down the hall.

"Olivia?" The two Dunham sisters looked at each other with terror on both faces. "What's going on?" Rachel asked. "What's wrong with my baby?"

Olivia didn't know what to say but Peter stepped in. "You know what I think?" said Peter. "I think Ella just has a fever. That could explain why she was so hot when you touched her, Rachel."

Rachel looked at her palm. The mark was still there now looking like a bad sunburn. "I…I don't know what to think," she said. "If she's sick, then maybe Ella's not ready to get back on a plane. But I have to be back in Chicago tomorrow. My job…"

"It's okay, Rachel," said Olivia. "She can stay with me until she gets better. It's gonna be alright."

"But you're in a wheelchair…and aren't you staying at Peter's?"

"Hey, there's always room for one more stray at my place," said Peter.

"And what about her schooling?"

"I wouldn't worry about that," said Olivia. "Considering that Peter and Walter are geniuses. She'll be years ahead the rest of her first grade class by the time you come back."

Rachel sighed. "Well…I should probably go talk to her then." When she went down the hall, Olivia's eyes started to water. "Peter…"

"Olivia, you don't think…"

"I know," said Olivia. "But now I think we do have to test her."

It wasn't easy for Rachel to leave her daughter in the state she was in, but she trusted Olivia and she trusted Peter. Greg was not going to be happy to learn about everything that's happened and that Ella would not be coming home but if this unorthodox treatment worked, then they could quickly get on with their lives again.

The first place Peter took Olivia and Ella to was the lab. Walter and Astrid were waiting for them there.

"Do you have to go work, Aunt Liv?" asked Ella.

"No baby," she said. "Uncle Walter needs to take a look at you to see if you're okay." Because Olivia was stuck in her wheelchair, Astrid had to take Ella to her office and help her change into a patient gown. The patient gown was rather oversized and she was nearly tripping over her own feet on her way to Walter.

"Why hello, Stella!" greeted Walter. "Have a seat on the table for me." Olivia wheeled herself over to Ella to stay as close to her as she could. "Now the first thing I'll need is a blood sample."

"A what?" said Ella.

Walter pulled out a syringe. "I just need to draw a small amount of blood from you to test for abnormalities."

Upon seeing the syringe, Ella began to sweat and panic. Flashbacks of needles going into her bodies and blood everywhere was all she could think of.

"NO!" she screamed. "No shots!"

"ELLA!"

But Ella quickly rolled off the table and sped back towards the direction of Olivia's office.

"Ella, come back!" Peter tried to go after her.

"Peter, stop!" Astrid pulled Peter back when she spotted the horrid mess on the floor. From the table that Ella was lying on just a moment ago, a small trail of blood had formed all the way across the lab to the office that Ella had now locked herself in. The blood trail began to boil and suddenly tiny needles began to stick out.

"Shit!" said Peter as he backed away from the trail of blood. "What the hell is this?"

everyone was freaking out about the freakish blood trail but Olivia was more worried that Ella might be hurt. "Ella!" she called out. "Ella, are you hurt?"

"She's not hurt," said Walter. "Nor is she bleeding."

"Then what the hell is this?" said Astrid. "And please don't tell me I have to clean it up."

"It's her fear," said Walter. "She's leaving a trail of her fear of blood and needles in a physical form."

Olivia wheeled over to her office. "Ella? Baby, talk to me." She could hear Ella sobbing on the other side of the door. "The bad man, he did something to me, didn't he?"

"I don't know," said Olivia. "But if you don't come out, we'll never know. Please, Ella?"

"No needles," she said.

"Okay. No needles. We'll find out another way."

As Astrid was left cleaning up the disturbing nightmarish mess of blood and needles on the floor, Walter and Peter set up their makeshift brain scanner behind a protective wall. "Okay, this time…," he said. "…let's hope this doesn't result in the entire lab getting zapped."

Ella was brought back out again with gentle coaxing from Olivia but she was still alone as she got on the table and Walter was setting up a brain scanner over her head.

"Peter, do you think you could hold Ella's hand?"

Peter wasted no time in granting Olivia's request. He knew that Ella was scared and with Olivia unable to move Ella was lacking a support system. He squeezed Ella's hand gently. "You're going to be fine, Ella." Ella remained nervous as wires were stuck to her head but as long as they weren't penetrating her, Ella slowly but surely began to relax her entire body.

"Now just relax, Ellen." Walter turned the machine on and Ella closed her eyes. The adults gathered behind a computer as the machine began to scan Ella's brain. After a few minutes, Walter was getting excited. "Right there." He pointed to a strange cloud of black in the computer scan of Ella's brain. "Fascinating, the presence is quite stronger than in any of the children in the original experiments. Belly was right. A new human host can regenerate the drug to extreme levels."

Olivia looked at Walter coldly. "Walter…just say it."

"Well there is no doubt now. The evidence is there," said Walter. "Ella is indeed Cortexiphan positive."

Peter shook his head. "This has to be a mistake. The blood transfer couldn't possibly…"

"But it can," said Walter. "Thanks to the regeneration of the drug, I say little Elbow here has stronger levels of Cortexiphan in her young body than in our very own Agent Dunham."

Olivia was choking up. "There has to be a way to get it out of her. We can do another blood transfusion."

Walter shook his head. "Once the Cortexiphan in the blood reaches the human brain, it will permanently bind itself to the entire central nervous system. It can't be destroyed unless you were to remove the brain and spinal cord all together."

"No…" Olivia broke down, worse than she ever had when she learned that she had the drug in her own body.

"Olivia." Peter tried to reach out to her. "It's gonna be okay."

"No, Peter. It's not. Don't you understand? Having Cortexiphan…it did terrible things to me as a child…things I wouldn't wish on my own worst enemy. All I wanted for Ella was for her to be normal. She can't go home like this."

Astrid had helped Ella off the scanning machine and she spotted her Aunt Liv crying. "Aunt Liv, am I sick? Am I dying?"

In Olivia's mind, she might as well be. How on earth was Olivia was going to explain everything to her? The nightmares? The visions of a falling world? The mysterious fires? Rachel wasn't going to understand and neither was Greg. Ella was tainted now. How was her life going to be normal again after this?

"No baby." Olivia's mask was failing on her. "It's going to be fine."